Creative Presentation Ideas

In this article our readers discuss creative presentation ideas for many different topic areas. You may find ideas for your presentation by having a look through. We have ideas for presentations on hospitality, banking, accounting, literature, health science and history.

Creative Hospitality Presentations

I have to do a presentation for my college professional guest services class. Our presentation is about a restaurant that we will formally review and evaluate. There are four people in my group including myself. The presentation has to be exactly 20 minutes (we are deducted marks if we are over or under). We were thinking of PowerPoint because it is easily controlled but it can be boring and unoriginal. We were also thinking of doing a skit but that can sometimes be unpredictable and childish. Can you give us any unique and memorable ideas? Or any ways in improving a PowerPoint presentation to make it interesting?

Ideas from Presentation Doctor

A couple of pointers. Firstly, on timing. The secret is to rehearse the presentation. If you rehearse out loud in front of the group, ideally four times and time yourself, you will be able to get your timing right. As you do your rehearsals you will see how it is working and where time is being lost. In regards to your PowerPoint, the secret of making it better is to use images. Images are five times more memorable than bullet points – so I would certainly avoid using bullet points.
There is some information about how to add in pictures here and about where to source images.
If you want to bring in a theme, then an idea may be to use one of the celebrity TV chefs as an idea. E.g. theme it like Gordon Ramsey’s “Hell’s Kitchen or Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners etc.

Ideas from Mike Brown

As an option why don’t you break your presentation up into a menu style, i.e.
Starters: Background, objectives, etc…
Main course: Content, review, research results etc…
Desert: results, conclusion etc…
You could even have after dinner drinks: questions etc…
Set the slide style layout and design to be along the lines of a menu. Take a look at this to give you ideas And if you really wanted to theme it, you could deliver it as a waiter/waitress!!!
A bit off the wall. But then these are often the memorable ones!!!

Ideas from Sarathy

Since there are four members in your group, each of you can split up the topic into four main sub topics. For example, in case of the restaurant the sub topics can be: the service, the food, interiors, the cost etc. Let each of the four take equal time and present the review by using graphs and statistics. The golden rule is to never read out anything from the slide. Do most of the talking all by yourselves. Just show pics and diagrams on the slide. This way, the overall presentation will look formal and also be made easier with power point.

Creative Banking Presentations

My presentation is ten ways to simplify your banking. I was going to open up with some statistics for shock value and then go into the presentation? Do you have any ideas along this line? I am looking to make the content creative not just the actual presentation.

Ideas from Sophia

There are a couple of techniques that you could use. The “Top 10” or “Top of the pops” could give you an idea to count down to your number 1 tip.
You could also do “10 tips in 10 minutes” You could do this as a timed presentation. You could face a clock towards the audience and get them to count down the minutes. This works best if you are well rehearsed.

Ideas from Gavin White

I think that the statistics is a great opener.
If you want to hold and involve the audience, you could make it into a multiple choice quiz. You could give three options A, B, C and ask them to call out the answers. You may have to prompt them a bit.
If no-one is answering the questions (it does sometimes happen) then ask individual persons, and if they don’t know ask them to guess. You don’t have to ask all ten facts – generally maximum effect is achieved in the first three.

Creative Accounting presentations

I have to prepare a presentation for accounting lectures with my group. The most important requirement is to audience involvement and creativity. I really struggling with creative side of presentation (the topic is harmonization standards in Europe).

Idea from Rachel Brown

As harmonization is about making the standards equal across Europe, each member of your group could represent the different standards of countries within Europe. You could do this by having them standing on boxes of different levels, and you can take away or add boxes to make them all the same height.

Creative Business Presentation

I am doing a presentation for a senior college business class on privacy and technology. The topic is on online tracking and behavioural marketing and we were wondering if you could help us think up a creative way to present along with our PowerPoint? Most of the class has used video clips and we were asked to come up with a more creative way to present.

Idea from Amy Pearce

Because this is about tracking and behaviour, you could create a mockumentary in the style of planet earth or another nature documentary. Have a narrator talking through what is happening when somebody is on their computer.
For example… “David is at work sat doing nothing much, having a look through the human watering hole of Facebook on the company computer. Little does he realise, that looking over his shoulder, is a software watching keenly at how much time he is not doing work. If he does not realise soon, there is the real threat that he may get eaten alive (aka. fired)”.

Creative Literature Presentations

For my grade 12 English class we had to read two books. Me and my partner read Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and Foe by J.M. Coetzee. Now we have to present a 10 min presentation in which we need

to explain the similarities and differences and the elements that were found in the second book that were inspired by the first book. The only catch is that creativity is

We are in a group of six and have to do a 15-minute presentation on Shakespeare, The Tempest to our class. It is instead of coursework and we are all working towards an a! We’re not all that good at drama and need some good influences please! I have a PowerPoint, but I want to keep it to the barest minimum, so it’s only a few mins long. I need some other creative ideas. I can’t find any videos or song, so that’s out of the question.

Idea from Presentation Doctor.

How about each one of you dresses up as the main character of the book. You can organise it so when there are similarities between characters, those two people who are dresses as them step forward. One person can say the similarities and the other the differences.
Alternatively, you could pick out the major themes of the book such as power and control or betrayal and revenge. Each person could have some sort of prop which demonstrates this theme and explain the relevance to the book. For example, for greed, why not buy some fairy cakes and put them on plates, and then have the person representing greed to take all the cakes off the audience.

We are in grade 9 and have to do a leadership presentation and we don’t know what to do it on, we need to keep the class interested for 20-30 minutes. and everyone has to be a part of our presentation, any creative ideas?

Idea from Nikolay Baldzhiev

Don’t get hooked up on the fact that you have to make a presentation. (Often teachers go for presentations rather than essays because they don’t have as much marking to do themselves in the evenings in busy parts of the term!)
Treat it as though you were writing and essay – in terms of deciding what to say, at least, and remember my previous comment: presentations in education are about you doing the work, not making the presentation!
Be as creative as you can. Bring in live speakers, use the internet, act out a sketch, use videos, use a model… There are so many ideas to choose from.

Creative Sociology Presentation
I have a booth presentation to do on violence against women and I have no idea how to make it creative. Please help
You could either do this with props or on a presentation.

Idea from Simon Roach.

Go in with a drawstring bag, and in it is objects that have been used for violence against women. Do not tell your audience what your presentation is about, and have your audience pick out the objects. Ask them what they think links the objects. Move onto case studies about the violence and then maybe the consequences of the actions.
To do this on a PowerPoint, you could have a picture of a bag on a page, and create a presentation where items appear to come out of the bag. Finish off the presentation in the same way as above.

Creative Health Science Presentations

Nursing Theorist Presentation

I have a nursing theorist presentation to do next week – no PowerPoint or any type of electronic can be used to deliver the presentation – there are 4 people in the group and its worth 40% of my grade. I’m wondering if anyone has any ideas on something really mind blowing and interactive…. the topic is culture in nursing….

Idea from Zach Compete.

To start with, make sure you know your topic, as the presentation will flow whether it is creative or not. This topic seems to be based on the Transcultural Theory of Nursing. How about talking about the health beliefs, values and life styles of cultures. You could make a sort of case study of when NHS nurses care abroad, for example what you would see and do in a different country and how it is different to the UK. Make it creative by illustrating different techniques and equipment for the different countries.

Biomedical Science Ethics Presentation

I need help in making a presentation about cosmetic and reconstructive surgery creative. It’s a group project with 7 people and each person has a maximum time of 4 mins to do their segment. Our 7 segments are: an intro. to cosmetic surgery, the pros, the cons of cosmetic surgery, an intro. to reconstructive surgery, the pros, the cons of reconstructive surgery, and a conclusion to tie the whole presentation together. Our professor is actually including creativity as a factor of the grade we will get. My group and I were trying to think of something creative but couldn’t think of anything. Somebody please help!

Ideas from Jackie Hermann.

If you want to capture audience, and make very memorable presentation you must be concentrated on your speech, body language and behaviour.
Slides are not for reading, they are only to help you to find what will be the next thing you will be talking to. To make more creative presentation, you may use some kind of remote device. I use my Pocket Pc to control presentation and is very effective.
When I want to highlight something – I just write it with my pencil on Pocket Pc screen and these drawings are immediately displayed on screen! Many times after presentation some people of my audience ask me what I use to make this kind of presentation

Creative Historical Presentations

Civil War Presentation

Hey, I am in the 8th grade and I am working on a project with 2 other people. My teacher says that it has to be memorable. Our subject is a battle of the Civil War. I don’t want to do a skit because I don’t want to look foolish.

Idea from Neil Tommlinson

This is going to sound like cold water… but it’s important you all (!) remember that the presentations are a means, not an end.
I train people in making better business presentations and my wife’s a teacher: I can assure you that the reason you’re making these presentations is not because the presentations are important (per se) as you think they are. If teachers/lecturers/professors give you a research topic which finishes with a presentation remember that the presentation isn’t the important bit… it’s just there to finish of the topic with a bang and to get you to formulate your thinking clearly. The important bit is doing the research and learning your topic!

Victorian Inventions Presentation

I need to make a tri-board on Victorian era inventors and their inventions. What might be some good props? What about format, background, etc. of the tri-board? what are some creative ideas that would make it interesting?

Idea from Mark Mason.

I would have thought that Thomas Edison would be a good one. You could use a light bulb as a prop. With Alexander Graham Bell you could use a telephone or indeed two tin cans and a piece of string. You could possibly dress up in Victorian dress with a top hat and a cape! I used to have a lecturer who dress like this